


you fool yourself

by tandum (nea_writes)



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Introspection, Its about as romantic as canon is, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14178768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nea_writes/pseuds/tandum
Summary: You fool yourself; that's privilege.Night was when the children came out to play, little voices and smaller hands, gripping him in a cold sweat, whisperinglet's play, let's play, tell me a storyin his ears for hours, and he couldn't say no. He'd whisper back,I think...And so it would start, again and again.





	you fool yourself

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't theoretically completely finished the game but I'm what you could consider 90% there.

The problem was this: he couldn't stop.

It was impossible to sew his mouth shut, even if he tried, or to stop the wheel running his mind, running, running, running. It nearly made him sick, dizzy with vertigo, hysteria, a mania induced glee.

 

 

Ouma slept on his back, normally.

The first night he curled up on his side and immediately stretched out, discomforted. On his back he could stare at the dark ceiling, the long light powered off but still reflecting a faint glimmer, the bulbs slowly cooling off. With one hand on his bare stomach and the other by his head, he felt immeasurably small beneath the oppressive silence. The air conditioning kicked on and off, set at a temperature too tepid for his tastes, but they didn't really have an option to make it cooler.

It was one of a million tiny things that made living within the cage that little bit more unbearable. Like food prepared that didn't taste like home, or restrooms with no privacy. The interminable school day, the hallways that squeaked under his shoes and the strange smell that permeated all school buildings.

Of course, there was also the strange differences. The humidity of several plants overgrown cloistering together, the acoustics echoing back every lonely step, the looming machines reeking of oil and exhaust, disgusting on his tongue, coating his fingertips with every nook and cranny he explored.

It was painfully familiar, with flickering lights and humming air conditioners, and then horribly different, a clash that sent him reeling and left the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

He hated it here.

Every day he settled in a stiff bed still not used to his weight, every time he curled on his side from some strange muscle memory, and each night he straightened and laid on his back instead, feeling bare before the world.

Night was when the children came out to play, little voices and smaller hands, gripping him in a cold sweat, whispering _let's play, let's play, tell me a story_ in his ears for hours, and he couldn't say no. He'd whisper back, _I think..._

And so it would start, again and again.

_I think Akamatsu is full of lies._

_I think Saihara knows more than he lets on._

_I think Harukawa is hiding something terrible._

On and on, and one by one his thoughts would come true, like little spells. A false saint, a martyred disbeliever, a lonesome killer, one on top the other, and he'd nestle each falsehood inside himself, building and molding what he could from the remains.

This is the truth.

 

 

In the bright light of day, the children's voices would grow quiet, and sleeping with one eye open left him slow to wake. He pushed himself up on one arm, rubbing blearily at his eyes as he tried to orient himself.

At breakfast he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to devour. Sometimes he sat by Saihara. Sometimes Momota. Sometimes Gonta. It varied on his mood, his appetite, how fast his mind was racing.

Today, he sat by Saihara.

Saihara was picking at his food, as always, separating the pancakes and eggs and fruit, even if he still meticulously gathered them together to eat in one forkful. Sitting with his hands under his legs, Ouma watched curiously. Saihara, obviously aware of Ouma's blatant staring, bit back a grimace and shoveled in another syrup drizzled cantaloupe and pancake forkful.

"Feed me," Ouma said, bright and loud. Across the table, Iruma snorted and cackled. Beside her, Tenko scowled and muttered about degenerate males. Saihara flushed, a light scattering of pink high on his cheeks, more from the attention Ouma was forcing on him than anything else. He cleared his throat, spearing a grape.

"You're more than capable of doing it yourself," Saihara retorted, cool and collected, voice lukewarm and sweet.  Even with Ouma he never lost patience.

Ouma whined and needled, wiggling his shoulders and leaning closer to Saihara, who leaned back, lips pressed together. "Buuuut I don't want to! I'm hungry, Saihara-chan," he looked up with big doeful eyes.

"Even I feed myself," Yumeno muttered around a spoon of yogurt.

Kaito snorted, reaching to the middle of the table to grab more juice. "Don't give him the attention he wants, he's just fucking around." The pouring liquid punctuated his words, ending with a splash. Tojo dutifully held out napkins but Kaito snagged them before she could clean the spill herself.

"That's cruel," Ouma stuck his lower lip out, affecting tears and a wobbly voice. "I just want to be closer to Saihara-chan!"

 _"Ah,"_ Saihara said, fork hovering in midair as he cut his gaze to Ouma. "You're close enough, I think."

"Not enough," Ouma grinned, grabbing the seat of his chair to hop the few inches over, now near enough to feel Saihara's warmth. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes. "Aaaaa—"

"I'm not feeding you," Saihara insisted, voice all twisted. Ouma kept his mouth expectantly open. He heard a sigh, and then, something warm in his mouth.

It sat on his tongue, exposed to the air, and he curled it up before snapping his mouth shut with a pleased hum and a sharp click of teeth, eyes closed as he chewed the bite of pancake.

"Happy?" Saihara muttered, not entirely unkind.

"Completely," Ouma purred.

"You shouldn't give in to him," Kaito said, with more disgust than Ouma really thought necessary. They were all friends! Weren't they?

Perching his chin on folded hands, Ouma leaned his elbows on table and fluttered his eyelashes, coy. Kaito scoffed and turned back to his own meal, and the others talked about Ouma and not about him in their particular ways.

 

 

"Hey, hey," Ouma needled, legs swinging as he sat on Saihara's desk, arms propping him up and mouth pursed as if he was chewing gum. "Hey, hey, _hey—"_

"Yes?" Saihara finally said, patience still unending. He was working on something, Ouma couldn't see what, but he sat with one knee crossed over the other, eyes intent on what he was scratching into a notebook. When Ouma had tried to peek before, Saihara had shot him a somewhat dirty look, and relenting Ouma had held his hands up in gesture of peace.

"So?" From his position Ouma could see the crown of Saihara's hair as he diligently worked. He had seriously soft looking hair, wispy almost, whereas Ouma's was more of a silky texture. Not as nice to run hands through, he imagined. At least, not like Saihara's.

"So...?" Saihara echoed, pencil resting on the swell of his lower lip, teasing.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

At that, Saihara blinked and sat straight, staring Ouma dead in the eye for the first time since Ouma had walked into the room and perched himself too close to the book Saihara was working on. Ouma smiled, poking his cheeks where they dimpled.

"I'm..." Saihara glanced back to the notebook and then to Ouma, eyes pale and washed out. "I'm thinking about this game, of course. What else? Why are you asking?"

"Nothing as crude as suspecting you," Ouma waved off, dropping his hands to support himself again. He'd wiggled his feet so much one of the shoes was beginning to come off. "You're not boring."

"You've said that before," Saihara remarked calmly, staring with an intensity that scrambled something inside Ouma. He could almost hear the pop of oil on a burner set too high, the fizzle and scratch and burn.

"Then maybe this time I mean it," Ouma said with a wink, hopping off and bouncing in place. "Of course, that could be a lie, too. Who knows? I'm great at it."

Saihara smiled weakly and Ouma laughed, earnestly.

Not that anyone could tell the difference.

 

 

The gist was this: he didn't want people to die.

What was the fun in that, really? Less people meant less games, less games meant less opportunities to fuck around, and honestly, what was the point in living after that? It was nothing as altruistic as loving people and animals and smelling daisies, but Ouma was quite simple in what he wanted.

He didn't want to be bored. He wanted to have fun.

On that note, he snuck across the fields and chiseled in a few more letters, proud of his handiwork. On a whim, he let loose a few of Gonta's bugs too before finally calling it a night.

 

 

He hated the silence of night. Surrounded nearly all day by constant chatter and arguing and little inane comments made the unearthly quiet of night too much. It felt oppressive, overwhelming, like the darkness was encroaching. He stretched out, hand on his stomach, the other resting on his pillow by his head, staring at the nothingness long enough that he saw stars.

He reached up and rubbed at his eyes, like a child, but there was nothing or no one to act for. When he let them fall to either side of his head, prostrated before the great darkness, he saw a kaleidoscope of colors, stars like the dying sparks of flint on metal. He drew with them, twisting countless ideas over and over, perfecting them.

Ouma was the supreme leader, and what did leaders do best but lead by example?

Killing was easy, and getting away with it wasn’t all that hard either. It took understanding others, a deep-seated empathy to take their face, stare into their eyes, and realize what they might think. What assumptions, conclusions, decisions, what outrage? It was as if he was standing in the middle of a class trial, going backwards step by step, until he stood over a bloodied body. Mouth parted in surprise, or maybe pain. How quickly would they die? Would they feel anything? Did Ouma _want_ them to feel anything?

What would their eyes look like, all pale and light and empty aside? Maybe like a fish. He reached up, fingertips running over the thin skin of his closed eyes. Would Ouma close their eyes? Yes, he thought, fingers trailing down to his lips. Their lips would be pink, maybe from biting them, or their cheeks flushed from the frenzied rush of panic. Would he hold a hand above their nose, see if they were still breathing? Or touch their carotid artery, two fingers sliding along the bared line of their throat? He inhaled, feeling his own pulse jump.

Yes, and then he might step back, burn the death into his eyes. It reeked of intimacy.

It was easy, like that. To understand murder. To recognize a killer. Saihara did it all the time, now.

For just a moment, in the ill breath before waking and sleeping, he wondered if he could ever get Saihara to see him like that.

 

 

 _This world,_ he thought, laying on his back and staring at their caged sky, _is mine._

It had begun as a simple ruse, something to distract them as he ran amongst them, hidden in plain sight. It was cute they hadn’t realized that he was just fucking around with them. It wasn’t like he even bothered to hide it. Plain as day, _I’m a liar._

But if they weren’t so easily tricked, then he would’ve been bored since the first day.  

“What are you doing?”

Glancing up, Ouma shielded his eyes from the false sun, grinning at Kaito’s shadowed figure. “I’m finding shapes in the clouds? Wanna join me? Bet I could find more than you can.”

Kaito scowled, catching Ouma’s lie. Or more likely, he just believed everything Ouma said was a lie. Which, well, was fair.

He crouched, resting his weight on his heels as he stared down. He felt too close like that. Ouma could reach down and grab his ankle, slide a thumb along the thin skin there. Or maybe trace the inseam of his pants. On his stomach, his hand twitched. It was ridiculous how dense he was.

“What’s with that look?” Kaito demanded shortly. “No, nevermind, I don’t want to know. Come on, we’re meeting up in the dining room,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the school, stifling a minute cough in his chest.

Ouma affected a wide-eyed stared. “You should really go see the school nurse,” he said, somber. “That sounds serious. I’m _worried_ about you.”

“Shut up,” Kaito grumbled irritably, pushing on his knees to stand straight. He glared down at Ouma, as if he’d spat on his shoes or something. “You’re full of shit.”

“I’m being completely sincere!”

At that, Kaito barked a sharp laugh and turned, crossing his arms behind his head. He laughed with this deep kind of roll, as if from the stomach. Saihara tended to laugh lightly, like air, a quiet sound. Ouma faked most of his laughs, but he wondered vaguely how someone would describe his.

He reached up to fold his arms behind his head and stared at the serene blue sky.

 

 

It wasn’t that he disliked Kaito specifically.

He was just particularly difficult.

 

 

The problem was this: Ouma had to die.

He didn’t want to.

In a way, he was damned. There were still several of them left, they could still _do_ something. But if he lived, then it all would’ve been for nothing.

Had Akamatsu felt like this when she faced her death? Numb and cold all at once, extremities burning with nerves? He hadn’t _really_ understood before what it was like to face death. Maybe it was something you just had to experience. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

He smothered a hysterical laugh, staring at that oppressive darkness.

Fuck, was this it? Was this the end?

His breath sped up, painful, wrenching life into his lungs with every passing moment. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to. A ton of steel was going to press in on him. He should probably turn his head to the side, he thought deliriously. _It’s going to break my nose._

On his bare stomach his hand twitched and he couldn’t lift his arm to stop the trembling in his mouth. He could cry, from that angle they wouldn’t see. No one would.

He’d gone through this step by step, prepared meticously, he’d even written a script. This was the final play, the last lie he’d tell. He’d beat this game.

But this—

The heavy machine clanked and groaned, deafening, and it was all he could see. He was gasping now, his chest rising to meet cold metal, skin prickling. He couldn’t stop his trembling, his gasps wrenched from him, the way his knees shot up only to buckle back down.

—this isn’t what he wanted. He never wanted this.

He never wanted to die.

He couldn’t breathe now, a suffocation so intense that he futilely lifted the hand they couldn’t see, shoving at the plate of steel with the humanity he’d always carefully hidden, straining hard enough that he nearly broke his arm.

He couldn’t see now, blinking rapidly to discern something, _anything, god, not like this, never like this._

The pressure was so intense that he couldn’t think now, it was nothing but burning, screaming unbearable pain, and he couldn’t buck away or lash out or move, he was pinned like a specimen and—

 

 

He wondered if Saihara could see him now.

**Author's Note:**

> An idea I'm toying with, but if Kirumi's ultimate goes hand in hand with her joy of serving others, then wouldn't Kokichi's tie into his desire to lead? To guide, to shape, to help? Who knows... 
> 
> Let me know what you think!!! Thank you for reading ♡


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